OBAMA: ‘I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office’

One of Barack Obama’s most senior advisers has told how the president said to him: ‘I’m the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office.’

David Axelrod, one of the key figures in Obama’s rise to the presidency and his first term in office, revealed the claim at the same time as the president tried to reduce tensions with Israel over an impending nuclear deal with Iran.

Axelrod made the assertion during an interview with Israeli journalist Ilana Dayan of Channel 2 news, according to news siteJPUpdates.com.

‘You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office,’ the president said, according to Axelrod’s account. ‘For people to say that I am anti-Israel, or, even worse, anti-Semitic, it hurts.’

The claim was revealed hours before Channel 2 conducted its own interview with Obama, who has a difficult relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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